Monday, August 26, 2013

Graduation Rate Rise in Bloomberg's Schools

Great to see – and more evidence that Bloomberg and Klein’s reforms are making a difference for NYC schoolkids:

The new, smaller schools at the center of Mayor Bloomberg’s education reforms have boosted students’ chances of graduating on time, research to be released Monday shows.

The small schools’ students — admitted by lottery and not on the basis of previous academic attainment — fared better than kids who were turned away in the lotteries and attended other city schools.

“I think it provides reliable evidence that large-scale transformation is not only possible but that it can succeed,” said Gordon Berlin, president of the research group MDRC, which conducted the study and plans to continue tracking the students through college and careers.

Since 2002, the Bloomberg administration has pushed to improve graduation rates by shuttering struggling large schools and replacing them with the smaller ones.

The research found that 70% of students from small schools graduated on time, while just 61% of the students who were turned away managed to earn diplomas in four years.